Tuesday, December 22, 2015

Sporting to Open 2016 Season on the Road

Sporting Kansas City will kick off the 2016 MLS season in just 75 short days. Today Major League Soccer announced the home opener for all 20 of their teams, so we now know the first two games of Kansas City's season. All 20 teams will start the season on the same day, Sunday, March 6th. For the fifth time in six seasons since the club rebranded to Sporting KC, Sporting will start the season on the road. It'll be a trip to the Pacific Northwest and Seattle to play the Sounders, Sporting's opponent in the team's 2014 season opener, who are starting their season at home for the eighth time in their eight year run in MLS. Back in 2014, the defending MLS Cup champions, Sporting KC fell 1-0 to the Seattle Sounders on a late goal from Sounders forward, Chad Barrett. The game will be on Fox Sports 1 at 6pm central time as part of a triple header with games on all three networks with MLS contracts (ESPN, Fox, and Univision).

Six days after their opener in Seattle, KC will have their first home game of the season when they'll welcome the Vancouver Whitecaps to Sporting Park. It'll be the first time the two teams have met since KC's 4-3 comeback win over the Whitecaps last season, led by Paulo Nagamura. It will also be the earliest time the two teams have faced off in the regular season since KC blew a 3-0 lead to tie 3-3 in Vancouver on April 2nd, 2011.

The full schedule for the 2016 season will be coming in a little over two weeks on January 7th.